If Iceland can grow bananas, then oil palms don’t seem like much of a stretch. But whether they are grown outdoors in the lowland tropics or in a greenhouse somewhere else, that’s land that cannot be native forest. At least in the tropics, it’s possible to implement an agroforestry system that includes both oil palms and native trees, but in a greenhouse somewhere cold… nope. Even if the yield would be greater than that of more cold-tolerant oil crops, more energy would be needed for heating in the winter, so intuitively, it doesn’t seem practical except where there would be large amounts of “waste” heat anyway, like near geothermal vents or power plants.

Fortunately, palm oil is not essential for nutrition, and many industrial applications could use (e.g.) hemp oil if palm oil is not available, so it’s not necessary to increase production of palm oil. About half of world production goes to “livestock” feed anyway.

Not all, but yes, some components are inevitably lost in the drying process. There’s a reason that dried fruit is often treated with sulphur dioxide as a preservative. Of course, preserving the colour doesn’t prevent the loss of large amounts of essential nutrients like vitamin C. Fresh is best whenever possible.

All systems of oppression must be dismantled, no matter how inconvenient or unpleasant that process may be.

Someone has to be the first.

The article is definitely lacking details about the Moche and Chimu cultures. The coast of Peru has a history of severe droughts and floods and landslides and earthquakes, yet these people had advanced irrigation systems and managed to live in such an environment for centuries. From what I understand, it’s the communal management and temporary nature of the irrigation infrastructure that differs from modern methods, but the how of managing it and moving it over time is left out. If anyone knows more, perhaps they can comment here.

Doesn’t need to be a desert. Anywhere that has a dry season with lower humidity should work regardless of total annual precipitation.

And borax, to keep the termites from eating it.

One more reason to move to the jungle.

Just be to sure to check for rotten spots in an old wooden barrel before setting it up! Old wood + constant moisture = fungal rot.

Thank you for taking the time!

Thank you for sharing such beautiful words of wisdom in these troubled times.

turbocharging the production of oil, gas and coal — the main sources of global warming

international commitments to limit the burning of oil, gas and coal that’s responsible for the bulk of emissions

That is misleading, considering that animal agriculture is the leading cause of climate change. If these big financial institutions really wanted to reduce their contribution to climate change, one easy way would be to stop funding animal agriculture. The banks in this article are not the only culprits either.

Not just strictly aquatic animals, either.

On the basis of monitored natural inland wetlands (including peatlands, marshes, swamps, lakes, rivers and pools, among others), 35% of wetland area was lost between 1970 and 2015, at a rate three times faster than that of forests.

Brazil’s Pantanal is at risk of collapse, scientists say (2022):

The Pantanal, which means “great swamp” in Portuguese, is the world’s largest tropical wetland, even bigger than the state of Florida.

This wetland savanna lies in the heart of South America and boasts one of the continent’s highest concentrations of plants and animals.

Pantanal’s intense blazes stoke fears of another destructive fire season (2024):

The clearing of vegetation for large-scale agriculture is also a growing problem in the wetlands. The Pantanal lost more than 49,600 hectares (122,600 acres) of native vegetation last year, according to MapBiomas, a 59% increase in deforestation from the previous year. “Because of the drought, people are clearing areas, deforesting, in the center of the Pantanal,” Rosa said.

Act now or lose the Pantanal forever (2024):

This year, over two million hectares of the world’s largest wetland, the Pantanal in Brazil, have burned, as agribusiness drains it and climate change dries it, reducing river flows and allowing fires to spread.

While the fires that ravage [the Pantanal] are often set by individual ranchers, they are worsened by a toxic mix of drought and extreme weather caused by the climate crisis, land clearing for cattle ranching and monoculture farming, mining, road construction, and hydropower. It is also largely unprotected – around 93% of the Pantanal is private land, and 80% of that is used for cattle ranching.

Indonesia is clearing vast peatlands to grow food. Climate costs are dire. (2024):

From 1995 to 1998, Indonesian dictator Suharto led a project to cultivate nearly 2.5 million acres. To drain wetlands in Kalimantan, more than 2,000 miles of canals were dug, many of them so wide that they’re still visible from airplanes decades later. A group of visiting European researchers said at the time that it would take centuries for the ecosystem to recover. “Peatland destruction,” they warned, “is an irreversible process.”

World’s biggest deforestation project gets underway in Papua for sugarcane (2024):

A total of 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of forests, wetlands and grasslands in Merauke district will be razed to make way for a cluster of giant sugarcane plantations, part of the Indonesian government’s efforts to boost domestic sugar production.

Indonesian forestry minister proposes 20m hectares of deforestation for crops (2025):

The clearing of 20 million hectares of forests could release up to 22 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the annual emissions from nearly 5,300 coal-fired power plants.

The same patterns keep repeating. Until humans learn to consider other beings and their habitats, the problem will continue to get worse.

Veganic agricultural practices, including syntropic agriculture and agroforestry techniques, can produce food sustainably, free up land currently used for grazing and “livestock” feed, and spare vulnerable ecosystems like wetlands, all while mitigating climate change.

Typed.

I did not know that. I had seen similar posts and thought that it was acceptable.

@[email protected], if you agree with jagged_circle, please remove this post.

Is that against the rules?

I don’t think it’s so easy to say that burning biomass is superior (from a carbon sequestration perspective) to preserving old-growth forest even if that means relying on fossil fuels (e.g. natural gas for heating). I don’t know the answer, but considering that burning biomass does not allow that carbon to accumulate in the soil over time as it would in a mature forest, the alternative to burning biomass would need to have very high emissions in order to come out ahead.

Of course I am not advocating for burning fossil fuels; I am only advocating for protection of forests. I don’t think that biomass would be a viable fuel for air travel in particular due to the energy density needed, but if so, and if non-combustion energy sources could be used everywhere else, then farming some young trees to continually cut to use for biofuel for air travel wouldn’t have so much of an impact if that land would not be forested anyway. Freeing up land currently used by animal agriculture to use it for this purpose would be an improvement, but “chopping down a forest” would be highly questionable.

Do you have any hard numbers comparing the total lifecycle emissions of fuelwood to those of other fuels (coal, gas, jet fuel, whatever), taking into account soil carbon as well? If the carbon emissions argument for protecting forests doesn’t make sense, I will stop using it. Deforestation brings plenty of other problems (biodiversity loss, habitat fragmentation, increased run-off and erosion…) that I/anyone could focus on instead.

New international limits on air pollution from cargo ships (in effect as of January 2020) have also had the same effect. The warming potential of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide has historically been underestimated by climate models which underestimated the cooling effect of aerosol pollution. The climate “tipping points” may be closer in time than previously thought.

Article

OP: Whenever you’re looking for a specific plant, it helps to give the scientific name, as many plants share vernacular names or go by different vernacular names in different areas. I think that “white clover” pretty much always refers to Trifolium repens, but including the scientific name is still a “best practice” to keep in mind.

For anyone else reading, Fedco (Not Sponsored™) sells bulk white clover seed in the USA:

• Dutch white clover
• Alice white clover
• Ladino white clover
• Rivendell white clover

There is another article from 2025 that discusses tipping points such as AMOC failure and makes some predictions based on an adjusted understanding of climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide emissions.